Head-on approach to economic problems comes at a price — Momani

AMMAN — Minister of State for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani on Thursday stressed the importance of the opinion polls that acquaint the public via a scientific approach with the assessment of the overall government performance.

In his weekly interview on the Jordan Television’s morning show “News and Dialogue”, Momani said that the results of the opinion poll conducted by the Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS) provide the government with a scientific evaluation on the challenges and required priorities and enables it to make "the right decisions". 

The poll, which was announced on Wednesday, was conducted one year after the formation of Prime Minister Hani Mulki's second government. 

Momani, who is also the government spokesperson, said that talks on economic challenges reflect the current status of the national dialogue, forcing the government to deal with the rising concerns, analyse them and search for solutions, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

A diagnosis of economic challenges regularly through opinion polls obliges the government to embrace the principle of accountability and not to delay problem solving, the minister added.

He stressed that the government “does not seek popularity”, which is why it made difficult decisions that were needed to improve the economic situation, which suffered from many faults over several years and negatively affected the course of the economy.

The minister added that the government chose to deal with the economic challenges and create procedures that serve the public interest and aim at avoiding economic downfalls.

He referred to positive international reports that highlighted the Kingdom’s improvements in various sectors, noting that the government seeks to sustain progress in indicators related to public performance.

In this regard, Momani cited the Doing Business report, in which Jordan’s ranking, that has been going down over the last five years, started to recover.

The minister said that the government works following a twofold approach. First by prioritising works that seek to present better services to citizens, in order to positively affect the public mood.

Second, it aims to ensure the Kingdom’s success in overcoming regional security challenges and refugee influxes, which affected the national economy, he added.

The spokesperson stressed that the economic reform programme, which the government started at the beginning of the year, has been seeking to lower the debt-gross domestic product ratio, which stopped increasing, adding that the deficit gap also decreased by JD450 million.

Commenting on the centennial of the Balfour Declaration, Momani said that the declaration was a “black spot” in the human history, which forced a people to leave its land and created a crisis that still remains.

He reiterated Jordan’s full support to serve the Palestinian cause and its demand of establishing a Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, reminding that the lack of justice affects the regional stability, and fuels terrorism and extremism.